That's so interesting dear. I was just on another post that was talking about naming her daughter Faye and how unfair it would be to a little girl. I mention words like societal patriarchy in my response. Anyway, yes the lesbians and gay can get married (hooray!) but they've always been a part of someone's family. Now, they're starting their own.

My guess is as good as any and if I didn't marry my late Edward and instead went with an Edwina (Eddie for both of them mind you), I'll lean more toward classic traditional names. It's seems only the ridiculous heterosexuals around LA and NY are naming their kids North, Apple, Suri, and Blue. Then again though, I can see the point of not choosing too girly-girly (Precious) or too rough (Butch) if I was in a same-sex relationship.

What gay icons could you name after a child? Martina? Ellen? Oscar? Truman? Gore? Elton? I'm sure we can come up with more without resulting in narrow stereotypes.

Interesting topic. I don't understand why Mary would be a problem. I'd get it if two men said they wouldn't use Mary but why a lesbian couple?

I think most people tend to prefer shorter/simpler names if their child will have a long or complex surname, hyphenated or not. My cousin only considered one syllable names for when she was pregnant because her surname is 12 letters long

It's true. My wife and I never considered Mary for either of our daughters because of just that. Honestly, the only challenges we faced when naming our four children were whether or not to use names along the biblical route (my wife was raised catholic, and we are raising our children in a christian church that welcomes everyone), as well as, the common troubles of avoiding kids with the same name, family names, and disagreements amongst partners. As a lesbian couple, we never faced any major challenges. Maybe it's because we live in NYC where it's common to see gay families walking down the street, or because had such a great support group of our friends, and my family. I'm not really sure what your question was, or even if it was a question, just thought I'd put in my experiences.

I'm queer, and so are many (probably most) of my friends. One major difference I've noticed is that my queer friends feel it's important to give their hypothetical kids gender-neutral names -- totally understandable, since quite a few of them changed their own names to better reflect their gender presentation and identity.